//------------------------------//
// Chapter Four 
// Story: The Shadow of Mortals 
// by Silverlinings 
//------------------------------//

		Chapter Four




Twilight and her five friends headed down the flight of stairs, from their quarters into the main hall of the castle. When they arrived they saw a long table in the center of the hall, with chairs only occupying one end. Sitting at the very end of the table was Diamond Jubilee, looking over some documents. 
Silverlinings stood near the royal pony, but kept his distance, as to not disturb her. He was wearing a uniform that he was supposed to wear everywhere, but instead only wore for serious and usually inauspicious occasions. The uniform was a set of armor, consisting of silver gauntlets, tunic and helm, each with intricate golden designs. On the front of the chest plate was the insignia of Stableton: a sapphire horseshoe emblazoned with more golden decorations. His helm held no plume, unlike those of the typical royal guards, who had large blue plumes which stood out to easily.
Silverlinings cleared his throat as the six mares entered the hall.
"Hmm?" Diamond Jubilee looked up from her papers and examined the room. Upon seeing her guests, she got up and trotted over to them, smiling, "And you must be Miss Twilight Sparkle! I'm Diamond Jubilee, and I'm in charge of Stableton. Sorry for not meeting you yesterday when you arrived, but I had other matters to take care of."
"Oh, it's fine," Twilight reassured, "Are you ready to begin briefing us on what's going on?"
"Of course, of course," Jubilee began moving back to the table. "Everything that has happened so far I've personally documented." Her and the six other ponies sat around the end of the vast table and began going through the notes.

Silverlinings stood at attention, looking straight ahead. He blinked slowly, in tune with his breathing. He remained totally calm, ready for anything that could befall his superior.
"Boo!" Said a hushed whisper right in Silverlinings' ear. He jumped in surprise, his heart beat accelerating. He turned to see Borealis Burnout, wearing her armor set (the only difference being the afore mentioned plume) and snickering.
Silverlinings rolled his eyes and returned to his position as vigil. Out of the corner of his mouth he asked, "What're you doing here?"
Borealis smirked, jokingly, "Glad to see you, too."
"Shouldn't you be training the new recruits?" Silverlinings continued.
"I delegated it," Burnout replied, mockingly taking position next to him, puffing out her chest in a poor imitation of her superior officer and friend.
Silverlinings smiled and face hoofed. He should have known Burnout would 'delegate' any work he tossed at her.
"So what did I miss? Who're those ponies?" Burnout asked stretching on the tips of her hooves to get a better view of the table.
"They're here to help with the town's problem. Ya know, missing ponies and such," Silverlinings looked around at the new ponies. Although he knew Fluttershy well, and Rainbow Dash even more so, he was still on the fence about the four others. Pinkie Pie seemed harmless enough, although she had that certain glow about her. She seemed... too harmless. Apple Jack appeared to be an honest, hard working mare. Rarity, although a little high strung, was generally polite. Then there was Twilight. She seemed to be nice, patient and willing to help. Silverlinings had thought that any representative sent by Celestia would have been stuck up, but it appeared that he was wrong.
"Cap!" Burnout yelled in his ear.
"Huh?" Silverlinings shook his head and turned to look at the mare who had disrupted his concentration. 
"You alright, Cap'n?" Burnout tilted her head, "You look kinda spaced out."
"Just lost in thought," He answered.

Diamond Jubilee flipped through her papers, giving Twilight Sparkle and her friends a basic run down. "Now then," She started, "Stableton has had trouble for years, mainly caused by two major issues." She separated the papers into two stacks while speaking, "We can handle all of the monster raids. The timber wolf numbers are dwindling and the parasprites don't seem to be repopulating fast enough, so we have the advantage." She tapped one pile with her hoof. "However," she turned to the other stack, "this is where I hope you could be of some assistance. "
"What's your other issue?" Twilight skimmed the top page of the second stack.
"We've had ponies go missing, leaving no evidence of where they've gone." Jubilee answered. "We're suspecting kidnap."
"What makes ya say that?" Applejack piped up.
"Well. none of the missing ponies have had any obvious motives for simply leaving without so much as a goodbye." Jubilee answered.
"Can you think of any pony who would do such a dreadful thing?" Rarity inquired.
"I'm afraid not." Jubilee turned to the unicorn.
"Well then, we're just gonna have to find out who!" Rainbow Dash shouted, confidently.
"Oh, that would be wonderful!" Diamond Jubilee's eyes lit up.
"Any idea where we could get started?" Twilight asked.
"I'm sorry, but no," The older mare looked genuinely apologetic. "We have no leads. We've tried using magic to track, but no pony in town knows anything strong enough."
"Hmm, well maybe I do," Twilight replied, smiling. "Magic is my forte."





Burnout and Silverlinings walked down through the castle, on their way back to the training field.
"That went well." Silverlinings thought aloud.
"Yeah," Burnout responded, "Hopefully we can put all this kidnapping crap behind us, and get this town back on track."
"Hopefully." Silverlinings trailed off, in thought. He was staring straight ahead, and didn't seem to notice what was in front of him, until he blinked and it was in full view. "Aaaah!" He jumped in surprise. In front of him was a large, goofy, yet slightly disturbing clown face. It held a face of pure delight, a creepy grin stretching from ear to ear.
Burnout was nearly crying she was laughing so hard. "Alright there, 'Captain?'" She put air quotes around the final word, jokingly, as though his courage contradicted his title.
Upon a second inspection, Silverlinings saw that the clown was only a mask, and that a filly stood behind it. There was a small muffled 'boo' from the mask.
"Very funny, Platinum." Silverlinings said, flatly.
The figure took the mask off, revealing a large, normal-looking smile, on the face of a young filly, "Hello, you two," She greeted, enunciating each word.
"Hey kid." Burnout replied, still giggling.
Platinum Jubilee, grand filly of Diamond Jubilee, tossed the mask to the side and started following the two adult ponies, as they restarted their walk. "So what's going on?" She questioned. "You two are almost never around here."
"It's nothing, Miss Jubilee." Silverlinings said, over his shoulder. While Burnout wasn't afraid to simply call Platinum 'kid', he showed some respect to the young heiress.
"Come on, you can tell me." Platinum badgered.
"Really, it's nothing you should concern yourself about." Silverlinings persisted. Being homeschooled, Platinum almost never left the confines of the castle, and the fact that she was still young and innocent added to her alibi that she legitimately didn't know what was going on outside in the town.
Silverlinings and Platinum continued to bicker about the subject, until they came to the front foyer. "Come oooon," Platinum whined, " I have seen some new mares around here and I know they are involved with this.So, what is going on?"
"Miss, with all due respect, this is a matter that fillies, such as yourself, should Not. Get. Involved with." Silverlinings was losing his patience.
Platinum gave a long sigh, her large, silver curl of a mane bobbing. Platinum took after her mother, who had married into the regal family. The unicorn filly had a teal blue coat and a magenta fleur de lis cutie mark, which matched her eyes, and a silver gem in the center of the cutie mark. "But I want to know," She continued to mewl.
"Sorry, kid, but we gotta go," Burnout quickly cut in, getting tired of the argument. She spread out her wings and flew out the large front doors. Silverlinings followed, leaving Platinum alone.
"Well," She huffed, as she turned to go ask her grandmother what had been going on.

"Oh that is just awful!" Platinum shouted as Diamond Jubilee explained the situation, hesitantly.
"Yes dear, but you shouldn't worry yourself," the grey mare added, quickly, "We've been given help, straight from Celestia herself."
This did little to calm the filly down, "What if this mysterious kidnapper decides to come after the castle?! Oh dear..." She trailed off, pacing, making herself worry and hyperventilate. While the little filly loved having a good laugh, it didn't take much to worry her.
"Dear, it will be fine." Diamond attempted to reassure her worried grand filly.
"Are you absolutely certain, though, Grandmother?" Platinum turned, and looked at the older mare.
She smiled and responded, "Yes. I have complete faith in these mares. Now, will you do me a huge favor? Something I wouldn't normally ask you to do?"
Wanting to distract her mind, Platinum agreed to help her grandmother.





"Kali..." Miss Appleworm stood behind her desk, shaking her head. Her student had been late to class, again. "Why does this keep happening?"
The early afternoon sun shown through the window over the filly in question, "This time, it was for a different reason, Miss Appleworm," She quickly defended herself. "My baby brothers were upset and crying all night, and I couldn't fall asleep."
Miss Appleworm took this by surprise. Kali never talked about her family, and the couple of times she had met Kali's parents, they never mentioned baby brothers. "Oh," She took this as a completely different set of circumstances, and lightened up. "Well," she said, "seeing as this is apparently the first time this incident has happened because of your siblings, and it doesn't appear to be your fault, I won't give you a punishment, but please, try to start making on class on time."
"I'll try harder." Kali nodded her head and left the class room.

As she trotted towards the outskirts of town on her way to meet Willow, Kali was lost in thought. Nothing serious, or particular, just how it was a nice day, how Miss Appleworm had been nice and not given her detention or some other punishment, how nice it was that her and Willow seemed to be back to normal, even after the awkward conversation from the day prior. She just thought how everything was nice. 
"Huh?" Kali staggered backwards as she accidentally bumped into another filly, who was walking in to opposite direction.
"Oh I'm terribly sorry, that was my fault." the other filly apologized.
"No no," Kali retorted, getting her balance back, "I'm sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going." She looked up at the filly, whom she did not recognize. "Oh, you must be new in town," She smiled and held out her hoof in greeting. "My name's Kaleidoscope Coral, but you can just call me Kali."
The blue unicorn gingerly took the hoof and shook it, "Hello... 'Kali'. My name is Platinum Jubilee and no, I'm not new here."
The other filly looked puzzled, "But I've never seen you at school, and you look around my age."
"Yes well, I live and study up in the castle, so I don't normally come down to the town." the unicorn answered.
"Really?" Kali asked. "What're you doing here? And shouldn't you have a body guard or something?" Kali looked around, expecting to see a large, burly stallion, who wouldn't fit through most door ways to be standing nearby, keeping an eye on the important little filly.
"Actually," the silver maned filly raised an eyebrow, "I can take care of myself. Besides, almost all of the royal guard is busy out defending the town. They don't have time for escorts."
"Oh," Kali thought about where to take the conversation from there, when she remembered her first question. "So what is some pony like you doing in town?"
"Well, now I was returning home, after delivering a message to the barracks," Platinum replied, "but it seems I've started a conversation with you instead."
"Oh, I'm sorry, if you're in a hurry, I can-" The purple pony started to say.
"Oh no, I'm in no rush." the unicorn quickly butted in. "You seem nice enough." She smiled, "Besides, it gets lonely up in that big castle with no pony your own age to talk to."
"You're all alone up there?"
"Pretty much." The teal filly frowned, "The only friends I really have are the captain of the guard and-"
"You're friends with Silverlinings?" Kali quickly asked.
"Yes, but he and Burnout are almost never around the castle..." Platinum looked down, saddened.
"I'll be your friend." The earth pony smiled.
The other filly looked up, quickly, "But we've only just met. I hardly know anything about you."
"So?" Kali shrugged, "We can fix that. If you have the time, why don't you come with me? I'm on my way to meet another friend, and I'm sure he'd be your friend, too."
Platinum thought for a moment, before she responded, "Are you sure? I wouldn't want to impose..."
"It's fine," Kali reassured, "I don't mind, and I doubt he will."
After some hesitation and thinking, the unicorn smiled and replied with, "Alright, why not?"